Today, I realised I can tell time by the giant ladder, on a clear day, at least, when its shadow sweeps across the road. It passes the lamp by the Dollarama at noon, and the pervert tree at quarter to three—that tree where the branches spell out X-X-X. It’s like a great bloody gnomon outside my window, reminding me time flies.

Maybe I’ll leave it all behind, move to that garbage island in the South Pacific and start a garbage colony. Be the garbage king. Rule the garbage gulls. Wear a garbage crown.

You know, if that stays there long enough, it’ll solidify. It will, right? It’ll gum up with dirt and old kelp, fish bones and sewage, boat parts and stones and clumps of hair. It’ll form this irreparable wad, this great floating katamari. You could live on it.

Think of it, a whole garbage empire, patrolled by garbage sharks. You could lie on its shores and get foghorned by garbage boats, egged by garbagetrosses, lapped by garbage waves. You could raise garbage vegetables in pots of garbage compost. Keep garbage goats in garbage pens. You could have garbage cookouts with all your garbage friends. You could ban dustbins and Dumpsters and build garbage nets, fill them with garbage, form a garbage archipelago with garbage straits and garbage inlets.

Man, you could make garbage missiles. Wage garbage war.

The garbage waves would rock you to garbage sleep.

The garbage sun would bleach your garbage hair.

You could build a garbage church and start a garbage faith, and the precepts would be garbage, and everyone’d get beer. You could sing garbage songs and dance garbage dances, and have some garbage fun. There’d be garbage weddings and garbage funerals, and your garbage corpse would feed the garbage sea lions. Ashes to ashes, garbage to garbage.

This is my garbage manifesto.

I’ll die on this garbage hill.

PS – Does “garbage” still sound like a word to you?